MILFORD -- U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy paid a visit Friday to Milford, a city still reeling from Hurricane Sandy with approximately 200 homes vacant because of storm damage from the late October storm.

"It'll be years before people will be able to rebuild, if that happens at all," said Mayor Benjamin G. Blake, who escorted Murphy from City Hall to Bayview Beach, where homes have damage that's typical of what's encountered along Milford's shoreline.

"The unfortunate reality in Washington today is that, unlike previous years, you have to fight to get federal aid for storm damage," Murphy told Mayor Blake.

The senator said that next week, the Senate will consider H.R. 152, the $17 billion Hurricane Sandy appropriations bill that would offer immediate help to both victims and communities that were in Sandy's path.

"A scaled-down amount," Murphy said, "but important nonetheless."

The mayor told Murphy that more than 1,000 people in the city still are living with friends and family members. Hundreds of homeowners are waiting for insurance money and other help, too.

While walking the beach, Murphy didn't have to go far to see several homes with red, spray-painted Xs on their exteriors, meaning that they are still deemed uninhabitable by officials.

Also on the agenda in the meeting with Mayor Blake was school safety. Murphy vowed to do what he could to ban assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

"We're also talking about funding to get increased funding for mental health, to identify students who might be a danger to themselves and others," Murphy said, who said that he had talked to parents in Newtown earlier in the day.

"These shootings happen in churches, movie theaters and shopping malls," he said. "We need to have to have a broad conversation about this."

Murphy, accompanied by Mayor Blake and State Rep. Kim Rose, D-118th, who represents the southwestern part of the city, also visited Joseph A. Foran High School to talk about school security.

Police Chief Keith Mello, also part of the traveling group, told Murphy that he, Mayor Blake and Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Feser would prefer school resource officers, as opposed to rifle-toting security guards. The city would prefer to receive federal help in hiring them.

There are 8,000 of these SROs nationwide that are funded by federal grants, Mello said, but he said that Milford has yet to receive one of these grants.

"My focus is on taking presentative steps -- getting guns off the streets and putting more resources into mental-health funding," Mello said, adding that armed guards would only promote the nation's "gun culture."

Resource officers, Mello said, would be sworn police officers and they would carry handguns, similar to other cops. But their focus would be on conflict resolution and they would be role models and mentors as well.